Voices from the Global Margin: Confronting Poverty and Inventing New Lives in the Andes

283 Pages·2006·2.45 MB·English

by  William P. Mitchell

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Voices from the Global Margin
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Voices from the Global Margin
CONFRONTING POVERTY AND
INVENTING NEW LIVES IN THE ANDES
by William P. Mitchell
University of Texas Press Austin
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Copyright © 2006 by the University of Texas Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First edition, 2006
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should
be sent to:
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䊊⬁ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of
ANSI /NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mitchell, William P., 1937–
Voices from the global margin : confronting poverty and inventing
new lives in the Andes / by William P. Mitchell. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-292-71269-3 (cl. : alk. paper)—ISBN 0-292-71300-2
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Indians of South America—Peru—Economic conditions.
2. Indians of South America—Peru—Social conditions. 3. Indians
of South America—Peru— Government relations. 4. Poverty—
Peru. 5. Peasantry—Peru. 6. Sendero Luminoso (Guerrilla group).
7. Peru—Politics and government—1980. 8. Peru—Social
conditions. 9. Peru—Economic conditions. I. Title.
F3429.3.E2M58 2006 2005019191
305.898⬘085 —dc22
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To Barbara Jaye,
compañera, wife, friend, and colleague,
who (among other things) taught me to write,
and
to Anna Saltzman Cohn, my teacher at Midwood High School
in the 1950s, who challenged me to question.
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: A Personal and Intellectual Odyssey 1
1. Pablo and Claudia: Peasant Farming 7
2. Horacio and Benjamina: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Class 37
3. Horacio and Benjamina: Confronting Village Poverty 60
4. Martín: Confronting Migrant Poverty 76
5. Valentina: From Bride by Capture to International Migrant 97
6. Triga: Guerrilla War, Cocaine, and Commerce 123
7. El Comandante Tigre: The Peasant Patrols and War 147
8. Anastasio: Fleeing Shining Path 172
9. At the Margin of the Shifting World 202
Notes 221
Glossary 233
Bibliography 239
Index 255
v
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APOTHECARY: Who calls so loud?
ROMEO: Come hither, man. I see thou art poor;
Hold, there is forty ducats; let me have
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins
That the life-weary taker may fall dead. . . .
APOTHECARY: Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua’s law
Is death to any he that utters them.
ROMEO: And fears’t to die? famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes, . . .
The world is not thy friend nor the world’s law:
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.
APOTHECARY: My poverty, but not my will, consents.
ROMEO: I pay thy poverty and not thy will.
—Romeo and Juliet, Act V, Scene I
ii
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Acknowledgments
I have many people to thank. The people of San Pedro and San
José, and especially those described in this book, occupy first place.
Not only have they shared their lives with me, but I have also learned
about my own as I have been with them. Yvonne Gavre, a volunteer in
the Peace Corps in the 1960s, oriented me to Ayacucho and provided
me with warmth and housing. I am grateful to her and to Kate Milner
Wright and Peter Wright, as well as to my brother Charles Mitchell
(who lived with me for a period in the 1960s), for creating a welcome
community in Ayacucho. Daphna Mitchell, my former wife, accom-
panied me to Ayacucho in 1973 and 1974; she continues to be a friend
and to provide encouragement and intellectual support.
The Monmouth University Grants and Sabbaticals Committee,
the Freed Foundation, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for An-
thropological Research have funded recent research, while the For-
eign Area Fellowship Program, National Institute for the Humani-
ties Summer Stipend, the National Science Foundation, Fulbright
Hays, and Monmouth University supported earlier investigations.
Wilton Martínez assisted me in Peru in 1983, and Carla Tamagno
in 1997. My colleagues at Monmouth, of course, have been a constant
source of encouragement and intellectual vigor; the university librar-
ians, especially Linda Silverstein, helped provide the materials that
made the book possible. I am particularly grateful to Carol Felstein-
Vignet and to Gil Podorson and Myra Podorson and to the many
other people who encouraged me to put more of myself in the book
and who have read and commented on the manuscript.
It has been especially delightful to deal with the critiques of my
sons Sean, a colleague anthropologist, and Nicholas, a consummate
writer. My siblings Cathleen, Charles, and Richard Mitchell have
encouraged me throughout my career; my brother Edward Mitchell